University of Utah

Western Political Science Association

Bureaucratic Whistleblowing and Policy Change

Author(s): Roberta Ann Johnson and Michael E. Kraft
Source: The Western Political Quarterly, Vol. 43, No. 4 (Dec., 1990), pp. 849-874
Published by: University of Utah on behalf of the Western Political Science Association
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BUREAUCRATIC WHISTLEBLOWING
AND POLICY CHANGE
ROBERTA ANN JOHNSON,

University of San Francisco

and
MICHAEL E. KRAFT,

University of Wisconsin-GreenBay

ureaucratic whistleblowing has become a common practice in the

United States over the past two decades, coincident with the rapid
growth of social regulatory policies (Glazer and Glazer 1989; Elliston
et al. 1985; Branch 1979). Each year thousands of government employees
call agency hotlines and contact the press and legislators with complaints
of official "wrongdoing" (Office of Special Counsel 1988; U.S. Department of Defense Inspector General 1989; Hyland 1989; U.S. Department
of Commerce 1989). There has been considerable attention paid to this
phenomenon by social scientists, but with a notably limited analytic agenda.
Political scientists and students of public administration have assessed
procedural and legal protections affordedwhistleblowers (e.g., Westin 1981;
Chalk and von Hippel 1979; Christiansen 1975; Devine and Aplin 1986;
and Kohn and Kohn 1986), and have examined whistleblowing from the
perspective of organization theory (Truelson 1986 and 1987; Graham 1986;
Perry 1989). Both scholars and journalists have also written extensively
on the paths of dissent available to whistleblowers (Peters and Branch
1972; Stewart et al. 1989; Vandivier 1972) and their motives and ethics
(Bok 1981; Wakefield 1976). What has been especially emphasized in the
literature on whistleblowing, however, has been organizational reprisals
and the personal consequences of dissent, such as harassment, dismissal,
transfer, demotion, isolation, or blacklisting (Nader et al. 1972; Parmerlee
et al. 1982; Clark 1978; Glazer and Glazer 1989). Indeed, according to
Truelson (1987), the seemingly universal bureaucratic impulse to use reprisals derives from widespread organizational corruption. Others have argued
that even when whistleblowers resign, they are not usually free of reprisals; Weisband and Franck (1975: 22) say they are "consigned to the political scrapheap" and are unlikely to be considered an asset even at a law
firm, bank, or business when teamwork and loyalty are highly valued.
Received: August 21, 1989
Revision Received: February 16, 1990
Accepted for Publication: February 23, 1990
NOTE:We wish to thank Beth Hull at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and Kelly
McLean and Dyana Ontai at the University of San Francisco for their assistance on
the research reported in this paper.

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A distinctive feature of this sizable literature is its concentration on

the individuals who blow the whistle rather than on the organizational or
policy consequences of their actions. Whistleblowing clearly changes the
dissenters' lives in many important and well-documented ways. But does
it also change the policy agenda, bureaucratic procedures, or public policy in a manner that promises to correct the abuses that prompted the
dissent? Typically, when someone blows the whistle, instead of policy
change becoming the focus of attention, the individual whistleblower
becomes the issue (Frome 1978; Branch 1979; U.S. Senate 1983). Indeed,
survey data indicate that it is the rare case where whistleblowing leads to
a significant shift in public policy (Soeken and Soeken 1987; Truelson
1987).
The reason for this record of minimal policy impact is that a
whistleblower's success is heavily dependent on the existence of a supportive political environment sufficient to force a change in the bureaucracy
(Truelson 1987: 71). Such policy change, we believe, requires not only
the efforts of a skillful whistleblower, but the sustained stimulation of public opinion by the media, effective lobbying by groups seeking the change,
and receptive and well-positioned legislators willing to conduct oversight
hearings or initiate corrective policy action. We hypothesize that these
factors are essential for significant policy change, regardless of the popularity of the cause being championed or the fame of the whistleblower. We
also believe our understanding of bureaucratic whistleblowing would be
much improved if scholars examined these consequences of dissent. In
this paper we try to clarify these relationships and to test some tentative
hypotheses through two detailed case studies from the early to mid-1980s.
ANALYTIC FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY

To study the relationship between whistleblowing and public policy

requires clarification of both the phenomenon of bureaucratic whistleblowing and the variables we associate with policy impacts. First, we must be
able to distinguish acts of whistleblowing from other kinds of organizational dissent. In one of the most thorough attempts at clarification of the
concept, Elliston et al. (1985: 3-15) review several common definitions of
whistleblowing, noting that key components include specification of how
the whistle is blown, who engages in the action, and the target of the
action. From this and other accounts we can identify four components of
whistleblowing: (1) An individual performs an action or series of actions
intendedto make information public. Intentionality of action is a prerequisite, as is making the information public, although there may be a variety
of motives for taking the action. (2) The information in fact becomes a
matter of publicrecord. Whistleblowers differ from other dissenters in con-

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

851

veying important information to parties outsidethe organization. They do

so in several ways, but the common ingredient is that they expect the
individuals to whom information is given to publicize it or act on it in a
way that makes it public. Successful whistleblowing requires that the information become public, that is, accessible to others as part of a formal or
open record.(3) The information is about possible or actual, important
(i.e., nontrivial) "wrongdoing" in an organization. This may be illegal,
dangerous, or unethical activity in the organization, including neglect or
abuse which threatens the public's well being, and it differs from mere
disagreement over policy directions. Important "wrongdoing" can be distinguished from unimportant actions by the number of people affected,
the seriousness of the consequences for them, or the amount of money
involved.' (4) The individual who exposes the agency is not a journalist
or ordinary citizen, but a member or former member of the organization.
We need also to clarify what is meant by policy impact, which refers
to those events occurring after and as a consequence of whistleblowing
that affect the problem at issue. In this paper we examine three dimensions of policy impact: the policy agenda, bureaucratic procedures, and
substantive public policy, and we ask three key questions: (1) How did the
policy agenda change in terms of the attention paid to the problem and
policy alternatives seriously considered by significant political actors? For
example, did the act of whistleblowing mobilize organized interests or
affect public opinion to create a demand for policy change? (2) What
impact did whistleblowing have on conditions in the agency itself? Were
there changes in organizational resources, personnel procedures, or rules
and regulations and the way they were implemented? (3) How was substantive public policy affected, as indicated, for example, by public pronouncements or by legislative efforts to formulate or adopt new policies or
to clarify existing policy? These questions provide a framework to judge
whether an act of whistleblowing is "successful." Policy impact in any of
these three dimensions should be considered a continuum, with small,
moderate, or large impacts possible on the agenda, agency, or policy itself.
Measuring policy impact presents a number of methodological problems. There has been little theoretical development in the field and most
research relies, as we do, on case studies that are neither replicable nor
easily compared across policy areas or political boundaries (Grumm and
Wasby 1980: 850-51; Sabatier 1987). One must deal also with the formi1The "wrongdoing" Congress had in mind when it protected whistleblowers' free speech in
the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act was "illegality, abuse of authority, mismanagement, gross waste or a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety"
(Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, PL 95-454).

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dable issue of distinguishing cause and effect relationships when the variables may not be clear or entirely separable, and when some data are
either unavailable or unreliable. For example, some whistleblowers may
be unduly modest in taking credit for their accomplishments while others
may claim far too much. To deal with some of these difficulties in the case
studies below, we use multiple indicators of policy impact where possible.
The central methodological challenge is distinguishing the actions of
the whistleblower from the host of intervening variables that condition the
nature and extent of policy impact. We examine three such variables: the
characteristics of the whistleblower (status in the organization, credibility,
and political skills), the characteristics of the issue (e.g., saliency, specificity, and the feasibility of correcting the behavior being criticized), and
the political environment. The last may be the most important, and it
includes the activity of interest groups or advocacy coalitions, public receptivity to the charges made, the degree to which the charges are publicized
by the media, and the response of legislators to the accusations of
"wrongdoing." We believe these variables are interactive and must be
treated as an important context for understanding the whistleblower's
success.

Viewing whistleblowing in this way strongly suggests the advisability

of using case studies to examine policy impact. Case studies allow us to
analyze acts of whistleblowing within the larger context of the prevailing
political environment and the interplay of these variables. The very nature
of case studies, however, limits the extent to which we can generalize
from the cases selected or state precisely the relationship between
whistleblowing and policy impact. Thus we view this exercise as exploratory. We hope to interest others in the subject and encourage the collection of systematic data on the questions posed. Our major hypothesis,
which others might test using additional cases in different settings, is that
whistleblowing is more likely to have a policy impact when several key
conditions are met: when media coverage is supportive, sympathetic interest groups work actively to bring about investigations or corrective actions,
and legislators are receptive to the charges and willing to act. We offer
other hypotheses in a concluding section that compares the case studies.
We have selected two prominent cases in the federal government that
illustrate these patterns and allow us to study the range of intervening
variables noted. The whistleblower cases assessed here are atypical in an
important way. They take place in the early to mid-1980s within an unusual
historical context. A Republican president, Ronald Reagan, was trying to
implement a conservative agenda that included extensive deregulation.
Career bureaucrats in the federal agencies, more liberal than the president, were likely to disagree with such policy goals. A Democratic House

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

853

of Representatives was also likely to resist the president's efforts. These

conditions increased the likelihood of dissent within the bureaucracy as
well as the chances that Congress would support the dissenters with wellpublicized inquiries and hearings.
Although our two cases differ from the majority of instances of
whistleblowing because there was an effect on policy, they are useful nevertheless because they allow us to describe the conditions associated with
policy impact and to identify some of the mechanisms of bureaucratic
accountability that enhance opportunities for effecting policy change. We
selected cases involving Hugh Kaufman, who blew the whistle on the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) over abuses in hazardous waste
programs, and Hal Freeman, regional manager in San Francisco, who
blew the whistle on the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) in the Department
of Health and Human Services (HHS) over its failure to protect individuals who were thought to have Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
(AIDS), or who were infected with AIDS, against discrimination. The
cases are fairly well documented, and they cover two different federal
agencies and policy areas, thus satisfying our analytic purposes. Data for
the case studies come from agency documents, congressional hearings
and reports, secondary sources such as newspaper accounts, and our own
interviews with major policy actors. Because the cases were well publicized when they occurred and have been described elsewhere, interested
readers can review the data to draw conclusions independent of our own,
a virtue of case studies noted by Neustadt (1980: vi).
HUGH KAUFMAN AND THE ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

At the time of his whistleblowing in the spring of 1982, Hugh Kaufman was assistant to the director of the Hazardous Waste Site Control
Division, and served under Rita M. Lavelle, the assistant administrator
in charge of the Superfund program. Although not in the top echelon of
EPA officials, Kaufman had been a career professional with the agency
since 1971 and was an influential employee. Despite his modest formal
position, he had developed a wide network of contacts outside the agency,
particularly in the press and in Congress. He described himself as a
whistleblower, although not a typical one, and as someone who knows
how to "use the democratic process to affect the issues" (Kaufman 1989).
In his capacity as the EPA's chief toxic waste investigator during the
late 1970s, Kaufman had blown the whistle on the Carter administration's
handling of hazardous waste policy. Eventually he provided data to Congress on a number of hazardous waste sites nationwide (including Love
Canal), testified before congressional committees on the issue in 1978 and

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1979, and helped affect the political climate that made possible the adoption in 1980 of the Superfund program. That program established a $1.6
billion fund from which the EPA could draw to clean up dangerous waste
dumps. Kaufman's actions in the late 1970s alerted him to the policy
influence that could be associated with an "obvious strategy"of whistleblowing, which he would choose again under the Reagan administration (Kaufman 1989).
In the early 1980s the Reagan administration was determined to redirect environmental policy and to reduce what it viewed as excessively
costly and burdensome federal regulation. In particular, it hoped to cut
the EPA staff and operating budget by almost 50 percent despite new
legislation that added greatly to the agency's workload (Vig and Kraft
1984). Not surprisingly, critics complained that the EPA was being virtually dismantled under its new administrator, Anne M. Gorsuch (later
Burford). Critics were especially vocal about a slowdown in enforcement
of hazardous waste site clean up, a popular program in the early stages of
implementation. Kaufman's own job was not threatened by the general
EPA cutbacks because the Superfund program was one of the few growth
areas in the agency.
By March of 1982, Hugh Kaufman began blowing the whistle once
again. He appeared before several congressional committees, including a
hearing on reauthorization of the Resource Conservation and Recovery
Act (RCRA) of 1976, the nation's major hazardous waste policy, and he
gave frequent interviews to journalists. He charged the Reagan EPA with
jeopardizing the public's health by failing to enforce hazardous waste and
toxic chemical laws, arranging "sweetheart deals" with polluters, and allowing partisan politics to affect the program (U.S. House 1982; Shabecoff
1982a and 1983). These charges were repeated in a celebrated interview
on CBS's "60 Minutes" on April 24, 1982, which because of its vast audience, dramatically raised the political stakes for the administration.
Other EPA employees were making similar accusations before congressional committees and through the press about EPA mismanagement
and a failure to enforce the law (Burnham 1983). However, Kaufman was
the most active and visible of EPA whistleblowers. It was no accident; he
had a clear plan for achieving policy impact, and as part of it he tried to
identify "pressure points for change." He also took advantage of windows
of opportunity, asserting that "timing is everything" in trying to bring
attention in the press and on Capitol Hill to agency abuses.
As is almost always the case with whistleblowers, Kaufman experienced reprisals, but he was successful in deflecting efforts to silence him.
Even before the "60 Minutes" interview, he had been stripped of administrative responsibilities, his workload was increased with what he termed

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

855

"meaningless paperwork," and he was harassed and investigated by the

EPA (New York Times 1982; Kaufman 1989). As many as fifteen EPA
employees were involved in the investigation to try to find grounds to
dismiss and/or intimidate Kaufman (Burnham 1982a). In response, he
used what he terms an "offensive and defensive strategy" to maintain his
influence and security; he appealed to his supervisor in the EPA, filed a
formal complaint with the Department of Labor, and went to the media.
Ultimately he was successful in reaching a settlement through the Department of Labor in February 1983, amid a raging controversy over the
Superfund program (Shabecoff 1983; Burnham 1982b).2 The EPA was
ordered to refrain from taking any steps to prevent Kaufman from criticizing the agency, which allowed him to engage in further acts of
whistleblowing as soon as his settlement with the EPA took effect.
We said above that policy impact can be considered in terms of shapthe
ing
policy agenda, altering bureaucratic processes, and changing substantive policy. We examine each of these areas in turn.
The PolicyAgenda
The heart of Kaufman's accusations was that Burford and Lavelle
were failing to comply with environmental law on toxic and hazardous
chemicals, behavior that was arguably a direct consequence of the Reagan
administration's agenda for environmental deregulation (Kraft and Vig
1984). The specific "wrongdoing" in this case centered on the charge that
Burford and Lavelle were not spending Superfund money as called for in
the law and they were misusing or misdirecting program funds. Kaufman's
allegations related to the EPA's use of "enforcement-sensitive documents"
that were protected by presidential invocation of executive privilege, but
some of which Kaufman and some members of Congress believed showed
potentially criminal activity. Hence Kaufman's focus was not merely on
preferred policy alternatives but on violations of law. Nevertheless, because
the controversy concerned hazardous chemicals, his accusations were likely
to gain media and congressional attention. There had been sustained publicity over Love Canal and other chemical dump sites at the time the
Superfund program was enacted in 1980, and the public was increasingly
concerned about the risks of toxic chemicals and hazardous waste.
2 The Labor
Department was investigating the case because the Superfund law contains an
unusual provision that protects the rights of federal officials to criticize publicly the
government's actions in protecting the environment. The department ruled that the
EPA had wrongfully investigated Kaufman's activities and sought to "silence the communication of ideas." As part of the settlement with the EPA, the agency dropped all
pending actions against Kaufman.

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Kaufman took little for granted in designing his "strategy" of

whistleblowing. He tried to maximize impact on the policy agenda by
developing, in association with Representatives James Scheuer and Mike
Synar, a "carefully orchestrated plan" for exposing EPA abuses. Scheuer
and Synar asked Kaufman to collect pertinent EPA documents and deliver
them to their subcommittees after his settlement with the EPA over its
illegal investigation of him was final, which occurred on February 14,
1983 (Kaufman 1989): at that time Kaufman was sufficiently protected
from agency reprisals that he was able to criticize the EPA openly. Along
with Scheuer and Synar, he arranged for news coverage of the transmittal
of those documents, which took place two days later, and which received
prominent play in the New YorkTimes on February 17, 1983. The Times
article included a photograph showing Kaufman seated between Scheuer
and Synar, with a caption saying he was "delivering a box of documents"
to them. The subcommittee chairmen told the Times reporter that the
documents indicated "potential wrongdoing" at the agency, and they promised to hold hearings on them (Maitland 1983).
Kaufman's action had the effect he and his congressional allies hoped
for. The Reagan White House, unsure of what documents Congress had
in its possession, and reportedly nervous about possible criminal charges,
dropped its claim of executive privilege for EPA documents. At a presidential news conference held the same day that Kaufman delivered the
documents to Congress, President Reagan said he would "never invoke
executive privilege to cover up wrongdoing," and he pledged cooperation
with Congress in its investigation of the agency as well as "a complete
investigation" by the Justice Department of all charges made (Maitland
1983). This White House decision set in motion Anne Burford's resignation as EPA administrator a month later and the subsequent transformation of EPA's top leadership. The ultimate effect on the environmental
policy agenda was substantial. Crucial to these developments was the fact
that five House subcommittees (including Scheuer's and Synar's) and one
Senate committee were investigating EPA implementation of hazardous
waste laws and Burford's leadership of the agency.
Kaufman's impact on the policy agenda was made possible through
his active collaboration with Scheuer and Synar, whose well publicized
subcommittee investigations spurred broader congressional scrutiny of the
EPA, including a thorough examination by Rep. John Dingell's influential Oversight and Investigations subcommittee (Davis 1983). A favorable
political climate, including public concern over hazardous waste, extensive media coverage of EPA abuses and internal turmoil, and congressional displeasure with Reagan's environmental policies, helped to make
his success possible.

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

857

Bureaucratic
Procedures
Prior to the arrival of the Reagan administration, the EPA was widely
credited with being one of the most professional, competent, and stable
federal agencies. To further its new environmental agenda, however, the
administration believed it had to mount a direct challenge to career EPA
personnel it considered to be unsympathetic to Reagan's new policy goals
(Davies 1984). Given these conditions, opposition by career staff like Hugh
Kaufman was to be expected, and whistleblowing was likely to have an
impact on EPA personnel and procedures.
The linkage between Kaufman's whistleblowing and changes within
the EPA was strengthened by the fallout from the agency's probe of
Kaufman's activities. As noted, the EPA began an investigation of Kaufman in an effort to silence him, but the strategy backfired. At about the
same time he accused Burford and Lavelle of misusing the Superfund,
Kaufman charged before another House subcommittee that EPA officials
were harassing him and were trying to have him fired to end criticism of
the hazardous waste program. These accusations were examined by at
least four House subcommittees in July 1982. In one case, Rep. Scheuer
threatened to bring perjury charges against Lavelle for having denied
under oath that she ordered an investigation of Kaufman. By early February 1983, Lavelle was fired by the White House in an effort to quell the
growing controversy, and with assurances offered by Scheuer that he would
drop the charges. Lavelle's effort to silence Kaufman contributed to her
dismissal. Kaufman himself leaked a memo from Lavelle's office that criticized EPA general counsel Robert Perry for alienating the "primary constituency of this Administration, the business community." The memo
was given to David Burnham of the New YorkTimes, and is often cited as
the decisive factor in Lavelle's firing.3
Lavelle's dismissal began a sweeping set of high-level personnel changes
at the agency. Kaufman's role in bringing about these changes was clearly
significant, not only in leaking critical memos to the press, but in becoming the subject of an investigation which in turn expanded the issue of
mismanagement at the EPA. Indeed, New YorkTimeswriter Stuart Taylor
listed EPA investigation and surveillance of Kaufman, among other evidence of the use of political "hit lists" within the agency, as one of the
3 It seems that one of Kaufman's
"operatives" in the agency pulled the Lavelle memo off a
computer disk belonging to one of her aides, who was the author. Kaufman sent it on
to Burnham. When Burnham called an EPA official to ask about it, the official notified Burford of its existence. The memo gave her the opportunity to fire Lavelle for
undermining a fellow member of the EPA team and then lying about it. On February
4, 1983, Burford asked Lavelle to resign and she refused. President Reagan fired her
two days later (Bonner 1983b).

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"four issues" central to the larger EPA controversy (Taylor 1983b). Within
a few months, these events of spring 1983 led to a number of crucial and
long-lasting changes within the EPA, particularly in agency personnel
and leadership.
By 1982, extensive budget cuts and the anti-environmental posture of
the Reagan administration had created a dismal morale at the EPA. According to one report in early 1982, dissidents within the agency were said to
"leak virtually every budget draft and controversial memo to the press
and to a growing number of [Burford's] critics in Congress" (Henry 1982).
Burford complained at the height of the controversy in 1983 that "it's not
easy to run an agency when the whole work force is either under subpoena or at the Xerox machine." (Dowd 1983: 16). That climate changed
significantly when she was forced out of office in March 1983, along with
nearly two dozen other top EPA officials. She was replaced by former
EPA administrator William Ruckelshaus, who in his brief tenure brought
to the agency a new team of competent, experienced, and professional
policy officials and helped to restore some degree of staff morale and
integrity.
Beyond these impacts on the agency's personnel and leadership, there
were changes in administrative style and policy implementation. EPA decision making from 1983 to 1988 was less confrontational than under Burford
and, to some extent at least, policy became more moderate; there were
fewer efforts to delay or weaken new regulations, and policy implementation improved (Vig and Kraft 1984: 363-66; Bowman 1988; Wood 1988).
These patterns continued under Lee Thomas, who took over as EPA administrator after Ruckelshaus departed in January 1985. they were still evident in 1989, when president Bush named a prominent environmentalist,
William Reilly, to head the agency.
Thus, Hugh Kaufman's influence on the EPA in 1983 was considerable. He stimulated media coverage of personnel and other abuses which
induced congressional oversight hearings, and eventually White House
intervention that replaced the top leadership at the agency. It is unlikely
that Ruckelshaus would have been invited back to the agency had Kaufman and others not been so effective in criticizing the EPA under Burford.
Although such an impact is inherently difficult to document, at least one
close observer of the EPA controversies offered an assessment of Kaufman's
role. New YorkTimes correspondent David Burnham in 1986 compared
Kaufman to two prominent whistleblowers, Ernest Fitzgerald and Frank
Serpico, and said "you can attribute the uncovering of EPA's inactivity
[on toxic waste] and Rita Lavelle's misconduct to Hugh Kaufman as much
as anyone else" (WashingtonMonthly1986). Kaufman himself describes his
influence as that of a "catalyst"whose actions brought about such changes

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

859

within the EPA in part because the "timing was right" and he was in a
"linchpin" position (Kaufman 1989). In terms of our model, Kaufman's
personal characteristics (his status in the EPA and especially his political
skills), the saliency of hazardous waste issues, and the favorable political
environment of 1983 created conditions highly conducive to influence personnel and procedural changes through his act of whistleblowing.
Public Policy
Finally, what can we say about this case with regard to impact on
hazardous waste policy itself? Congressional investigation of the multifaceted scandal at EPA reached a peak in late 1982 and early 1983, and it
was front-page news in the nation's press when Anne Burford became the
first cabinet-level official ever to be cited for contempt by the House of
Representatives; the citation was prompted, as already described, by her
refusal, on presidential orders, to turn over subpoenaed EPA documents
on management of the Superfund program (Shabecoff 1982b). The immediate dispute over the documents was settled when the Justice Department
dropped its claim of executive privilege and gave the House Public Works
Committee's Investigating Subcommittee access to the EPA documents in
question. That was hardly likely to be the end of the story, however, given
the prominence of the issues and congressional interest in revising environmental statutes to prevent the kinds of administrative abuses widely
criticized during Burford's tenure at the agency.
Accusations against Lavelle, Burford, and others in the EPA were
made at a time of growing public concern about hazardous chemicals,
and just after congressional passage of the Superfund act in 1980. They
also occurred as the EPA was completing action on comprehensive regulations to enforce the other major hazardous waste law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976. Moreover, Congress (at least the
House, with its Democratic majority) was anxious to protect and strengthen
a number of major environmental policies to counteract Reagan administration efforts to weaken them. Hugh Kaufman arrived at an opportune
moment.
Given these conditions, we can say that Kaufman did indeed play a
role similar to the policy entrepreneur (Kingdon 1984). As a whistleblower
making specific charges of illegal conduct, he added to the visibility of
hazardous waste policy issues and the momentum of EPA investigations
on the Hill, and he spurred Congress to examine the adequacy of policy
at that time. Congress did go on to revise RCRA in 1984, imposing much
more stringent standards and deadlines, and cutting back sharply on discretion previously granted to the EPA. In effect, Congress said that it
didn't trust the Reagan EPA to administer the law without imposing such

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restrictions. Similarly, Congress expanded the Superfund program in 1986,

greatly increasing authorizations (to nearly $9 billion over a five year
period) and adding significant new requirements for public notification of
chemical risks and for cleaning up abandoned waste sites. Neither the
case nor our model allow us to say Hugh Kaufman alone was responsible
for these changes. But we can say that he played a pivotal role in 1982
and 1983, and thereby increased both the likelihood that significant policy change would occur and the timing of key decisions.
HAL FREEMAN AND THE OFFICE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

Freeman had been regional manager for two years in the San Francisco
Office for Civil Rights (OCR), in the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services (HHS), when he resigned in protest over OCR policy
regarding discrimination against persons with AIDS, AIDS-related conditions, or persons who were perceived as having such a condition (Freeman 1986b). His issue was specific and it was feasible to address. In his
resignation letter to Betty Lou Dotson, a Reagan appointee and then
director of OCR, Freeman argued that people with AIDS, and those
thought to have AIDS, were protected by the Section 504 regulations of
the Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1973 which prohibits discrimination
on the basis of handicap. Because of the emergency nature of the AIDS
epidemic, he called for prompt action by OCR and he alluded to the
Reagan administration'sgeneral record of nonenforcement (Freeman 1986b).
It was just a few months earlier that San Francisco had received OCR's
first AIDS-related case from Philip Monfette, a jail medical technician
(Monfette 1985). When in accordance with OCR instructions, Freeman
had contacted headquarters, Dotson's assistant deemed the complaint "low
priority,"doubted that OCR had jurisdiction (Freeman 1985), and referred
the complaint to the Department of Justice (Hood 1986a). By February,
the Department of Justice had kicked the case back to OCR (Oneglia
1986), where headquarters kept administrative control of the cases (Dotson
1986); without a clear policy, regional offices were unable to respond to
complaints or public inquiries (Graff 1986; Adams 1986b; Freeman 1986a).
Freeman had status and visibility because of his position as OCR
manager for a four-state region and his resignation, almost immediately,
was public knowledge and helped focus public attention on the issue.
Copies circulated throughout OCR, ripples ran through the civil rights
community, Freeman's phone was ringing off the hook, and press coverage and congressional inquiries followed (Macpherson 1989).
Freeman's resignation and the stories in major newspapers which publicized it had significant impact (Cimons 1986; Mathews 1986; Schilts
1986; Oakland Tribune1986). When he blew the whistle on the AIDS-

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

861

related civil rights issue, by raising questions about OCR's policy of general nonenforcement, Freeman also got the attention of the more traditional civil rights organizations as well as the newer gay and
AIDS-connected groups. But even more important was Freeman's success
in congressional networking. Many congressional Democrats were not happy
with the Reagan record on civil rights. The resignation provoked a critical response, especially from California legislators. Rep. Henry Waxman
(D. CA), chair of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on
Health and the Environment, spoke forcefully about his concern over the
issue, Rep. Ted Weiss (D. NY), chair of the Government Operations
Subcommittee on Intergovernmental Relations and Human Resources,
promised hearings (Daily LaborReport1986), and Sen. Alan Cranston (D.
CA) sent a detailed letter to the secretary of health and human services,
Otis Bowen, expressing his "great disappointment" in the way OCR was
handling AIDS-related cases. In his letter, Cranston specifically referred
to Freeman's resignation letter and "as a principal Senate author" of the
504 regulations, Cranston called "preposterous" the interpretation that
"AIDS . . . is not an impairment under Section 504 (Cranston 1986).
Meanwhile, Rep. Mervyn Dymally (D. CA) was working behind the
scenes, assisted by an OCR employee, Jim Fukumoto, who since 1984,
had been detailed to Congress as a Legislative Fellow by a special Office
of Personnel Management (OPM) HHS program. With Fukumoto's help,
in early March, Dymally wrote strong letters to Ted Weiss and Henry
Waxman about his concern about a possible breach of law, urging his
colleagues to continue to exercise their oversight responsibilities (Dymally
1986a and 1896b).
One option Freeman had was to blow the whistle and continue to
work for OCR. However, because he knew there would be reprisals if he
publicly protested and continued to work in that office, he decided to
resign (Macpherson 1989). As we noted earlier, a whistleblower who resigns
may also experience reprisals, but Freeman was unconcerned for two reasons: he was not only leaving government employment altogether, but he
was also entering a new field (psychology) where team play and loyalty to
an organization was not as important.
The PolicyAgenda
What effect did Freeman's public resignation have in changing the
policy against which he protested? As we have seen, Freeman had a clear
impact on the policy agenda. "There was no story until the resignation,"
said insider Jim Fukumoto (1989). Freeman stimulated public discussion
and group action, especially among civil rights advocates, which included
traditional groups like the National Association for the Advancement of

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Colored People (NAACP) (McClure 1986) as well as gay activists, whose

work to get local anti-discrimination laws passed in cities and counties
was fueled by the resignation. Freeman got instant media coverage with
his resignation, but he also helped put the issue on the agenda for many
affirmative action and equal opportunity officers who flooded the OCR
regional office with inquiries (Robertson 1989). The resignation in protest
was also a perfect hook to help some members of Congress set a congressional agenda which would embarrass the Reagan administration on its
civil rights record. Freeman would be a star witness at congressional hearings six months later. Thus, while it was not a highly salient issue for the
general public, the question of whether people with AIDS or those thought
to have AIDS were protected from discrimination became a part of many
social and governmental agendas at this time because of Hal Freeman's
public resignation.
Bureaucratic
Procedures
What impact did Freeman's resignation have on the very practices
and procedures he could not change as regional manager? It is hard to
measure such an impact because many of the procedures and policies
might have been changed in due course as a result of other political and
legal pressures. Nevertheless, all those interviewed for this case agree that
this resignation, by exposing OCR the way it did, "broke the dam" and
started a flood of changes that could not be stopped.
To begin with, less than one week after the Freeman resignation, each
region, at headquarter's request, designated a staff person to coordinate
the processing of AIDS complaints (Hood 1986b). It was a step toward
preparing for AIDS-related cases but also represented a move by headquarters, as one anonymous informant put it, to "micro-manage" the processing of the cases with daily reporting requirements (Adams 1986). July
1986 procedural guidelines, and those prepared by headquarters in November 1986, required that the regions forward to Washington, on a tight
schedule, information on their cases and an Investigative Plan for
headquarter'sapproval because "administrativecontrol of AIDS/ARC cases
is at the headquarters level . . . "(Apodaca 1986; Office for Civil Rights
1986).
As a result of Freeman's actions, organizational behavior in Region
IX (San Francisco) changed in another way. While the administration
kept tight control of the region's complaint procedures and skirted the
issue of just what OCR's AIDS policy was, the Region IX office under
its new manager, Virginia Apodaca, mounted a mailing to all AIDS
service groups within the region, listed with the Center for Disease Control. By June 1986, a Region IX fact sheet had been sent to 900 groups.

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

863

By November 1986, the mailings had expanded to state anti-discrimination

agencies and municipalities as well as lawyers' groups, inviting them to
refer discrimination cases to OCR. The later mailings also went to
"gay" periodicals, and the fact sheet was made available in Chinese,
Spanish, and Tagalog. The June fact sheet mailing boldly invited persons
with AIDS or related conditions who believed they had been discriminated against on the basis of handicap to file a complaint with the OCR
in HHS because of the protections of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation
Act of 1973 (Department of Health and Human Services, Region IX,
1986).
According to Apodaca, Freeman's resignation made it "more possible
to do the mailing. It might have been ignored before; it was now an
issue." Another source suggested that headquarters could not prevent the
provocative mailing because OCR was now so exposed to public attention
and congressional scrutiny on the issue, that "clamping down" would represent proof that OCR was not enforcing the law (Anonymous 1989). In
every major city, there were AIDS-related foundations and gay organizations which cooperated by doing supplementary mailings and networking
to communicate the "policy,"(Apodaca 1989). Thus Freeman's whistleblowing directly affected the regional office's action and its action helped further mobilize organized interests. Ironically, Betty Lou Dotson, director
of OCR, presented Apodaca with an award for her AIDS outreach activities in October 1986, at a meeting of all the regional managers.
Nevertheless, HHS still did not have an "official"policy on discrimination and AIDS, and so, in March, the HHS general counsel asked the
Justice Department to clarify OCR's responsibilities toward people with
AIDS or those thought to have AIDS. Apodaca suggested it was
"unprecedented" and a delaying tactic, noting that there was "sufficient
legal talent in HHS to make the determination" (1989).
In response to the request, Stewart Oneglia, in the Civil Rights Division of Justice, prepared an opinion consistent with the opinions of the
mostly career civil service attorneys in his section. It was leaked to the
press and published in the New YorkTimeson June 8, 1986. It argued that
people with AIDS are handicapped and entitled to protection (Abramson
1986: 15; Pear 1986). The New YorkTimes reported that this was the
Department of Justice's "final position on the issue" and that "senior officials said there was little disagreement within the department" (Pear 1986).
Nothing could have been further from the truth. Two weeks later,
Assistant Attorney General Charles Cooper issued the Justice Department's
"official"opinion and "it bore almost no resemblance" to Oneglia's draft.
Cooper argued that "an immune carrier does not have a physical or mental impairment" (handicap) and that while employers cannot discriminate

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The WesternPolitical Quarterly

against a person because he has AIDS, they can discriminate "based on

concern about contagiousness" (Abramson 1986: 15). According to two
sources, the Cooper document was leaked to the New YorkTimesso that it
could appear in the Sunday edition to get the most publicity possible, and
it was leaked by someone who would not have done it had it not been
for Freeman's resignation. The July 15th New YorkTimes headlined the
story, "Justice Department Supports Discrimination Based on Fear of
Contagion," and the Wall StreetJournal cited widespread opposition to
Cooper's policy within the business community (Abramson 1987: 15, 16).
Indeed, HHS now had its opinion; it was not very popular in the press
and it was not long lasting. Both the Supreme Court and Congress rejected
the interpretation.
Public Policy
The Supreme Court rejected Cooper's interpretation in SchoolBoardof
Nassau Countyv. Arline, a case involving a person with the contagious disease, tuberculosis, who was discharged from a tenured teaching position
because of a fear by the school board that she would threaten the health of
students and colleagues. On July 14, 1986, the Solicitor General used the
Cooper argument and reasoned that "Arline was discharged not because
of her disability but because of her infection. . . . The mere 'belief that an
individual is contagious -whether reasonable or not,' was sufficient to
absolve the school board of discrimination." (Cook 1987: 17).
The majority of the Court rejected this perspective, and Justice Brennan wrote the opinion, which argued that the section 504 regulation protects individuals from prejudice(Barnes and Frankfurt 1987: 6). It is unlikely
that Freeman, the whistleblower, affected very directly the outcome of a
judicial case that had to do with a black school teacher with tuberculosis
who was fired in 1979. However, his resignation did affect what Congress
did during the summer of 1986. The Intergovernmental Relations and
Human Resources Subcommittee hearings, promised By Rep. Ted Weiss
(D. NY), were held on August 6 and 7, 1986. Not only did Freeman's
resignation stimulate the hearings, his impact was felt in two other ways:
the veracity of his presentation as one of the committee's "star"witnesses
and the stimulation his resignation gave to others to cooperate with the
oversight investigation.
As a former regional manager who no longer had his job to protect,
Freeman's testimony was filled with examples, went beyond AIDS-related
issues, and was quoted extensively in the committee's report. In terms of
our model, Freeman's personal characteristics (his status and skills) made
him an especially effective whistleblower. Conditions within the agency
also favored change; many staffers disagreed with the Reagan policy and

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

865

Freeman's resignation spurred OCR staff in headquarters to cooperate

with the committee. One dramatic case was Pat Hoffman, special assistant to the deputy director, who admitted that "Hal set the stage for me to
go to the committee." (Hoffman 1989)
Apparently, Betty Lou Dotson, director of OCR, had traveled extensively "on taxpayer's money"- 126 trips to 38 U.S. cities and nine foreign
countries at a cost of $86,858 during her first five years as director. She
also ran up $6,840 in taxi fares on her domestic trips (Kurtz 1986 and
1987; Davidson 1986). Hoffman had reported this to the inspector general in 1982, but nothing was done because Dotson was a political appointee. In April 1986, Hoffman leaked information on Dotson's travel vouchers to the Weiss subcommittee. Hoffman volunteered that "Hal's resignation
gave me the courage to do what I did" (1989). Her anonymity was protected by the committee until it directed the General Accounting Office
(GAO) to investigate the travel abuses and GAO "blew Hoffman's cover."
That's when she realized there were at least 15 others in the office who
were primed to do something or who were already cooperating with the
investigation. They had revealed themselves to Hoffman because her
whistleblowing had been exposed. All this occurred, Hoffman said, because
Freeman had resigned (1989). Said another informant, "Hal made people
bolder." People were "fueled by Hal's resignation." He had "sacrificed his
career, people were asked to sacrifice and risk" (Anonymous 1989). Jim
Fukumoto also characterized Freeman's unique impact on events: "Hal
catalyzed the internal workings [of OCR], and something happened to
someone who was not controversial." Freeman "gave it momentum and
credibility; no one had faced [Dotson] down, resigned in protest" (1989).
The publicity from the hearings hit the agency hard. It exposed its
weak enforcement record where cases were "allowed to sit languishing at
headquarters for policy formulation and determination which [was] never
made," according to Rep. Dymally, who was a witness at the hearings.
OCR was described by the committee as "out of control." (Marlow 1986:
7). But even before the sound of the first gavel, the committee hearings
affected substantive policy. The initial tangible policy fallout from the
hearings occurred the night before the first committee session, when OCR
issued its first decision on an AIDS discrimination case, filed in Atlanta.
OCR found a hospital that had fired a nurse because he had AIDS,
in violation of the 504 regulations (Hoffman 1989). However, by far the
biggest effect of the hearings was its impact on Dotson, who was forced
to resign on March 13, 1987; the revelations about her travel abuses left
her too vulnerable for the administration to keep her on. According to
two informants, Dotson had been "getting her signals from the
administration" which tried to protect her when she was attacked. In the

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beginning, it refused to honor requests from Congress that Justice or the

inspector general investigate her, and when she had to resign, it made her
HHS representative to the Bicentennial Commission on the Constitution
to save her pension (Kurtz 1987).
Dotson's departure was more than a bureaucratic personnel change
and had more than a symbolic effect; it directly affected civil rights policy.
It was no secret that Dotson was unsympathetic toward people with AIDS.
According to sources, she was overheard to have said, "I'm not going to
do something which gives these people an aura of dignity." She was also
overheard asking her assistant "how she could avoid taking complaints
from those people." The hearings and then her departure "opened things
up so we could do our jobs again" (Hoffman 1989).
On April 16, 1987, the House Committee on Government Operations
released the Weiss subcommittee report. It accused OCR of failing to do
its job, of delaying cases and of allowing discrimination to continue (U.S.
House 1987; Rich 1987). No separate mention was made of AIDS discrimination cases because OCR AIDS policy and OCR bureaucratic procedures had already been changed. Many of the regions were receiving
AIDS-related cases, regional representatives had been trained in AIDSrelated issues, and cases were being handled expeditiously with time frames
which gave them priority status.
One month after the House report, Hal Freeman found out he had
AIDS. A year later, in August, in a massive mailing, Audry Morton, the
new OCR director, gave notice to 100,000 HHS recipients across the
country that "persons who have or are perceived as having AIDS or AIDSrelated conditions . . . may not be discriminated against under any federally assisted program or activity." In September, the office of the assistant attorney general released a memorandum reversing the Cooper opinion
(Kmiec 1988).
Hal Freeman had died two months earlier on July 30, 1988. The following week, Rep. Dymally entered Freeman's resignation letter into the
Record,prefaced by a statement crediting him with influencCongressional
over protection of Americans with AIDS and the enforcedebate
ing public
ment of civil rights laws. Pat Hoffman, in OCR headquarters, prepared a
patch for the national AIDS quilt. It included the HHS seal and a quote
from Freeman's resignation letter: "My greater allegiance is to my conscience and to my commitment to eliminate bigotry in all its forms."
COMPARISON OF THE CASES

We have described two cases which are consistent with the concept of
bureaucratic whistleblowing and in which an important impact on public
policy occurred. In each case the data indicate a substantial effect on the

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

867

policy agenda, agency procedures, and substantive policy. These are unusual
cases that differ from the prevailing pattern in which whistleblowing has
no such policy impact (Truelson 1987; Soeken and Soeken 1987). These
cases of successful whistleblowing are instructive precisely because they
are exceptions to the pattern. The policy impact we found here allows
examination, even if only suggestive, of the conditions that may determine whether and to what extent such impacts are likely in other cases.
Our analytic framework posits that three sets of variables will condition
policy impact: the characteristics of the whistleblower (status, credibility,
and political skills), the characteristics of the issue (saliency, specificity,
and feasibility of corrective action), and the political environment (public
opinion, group activity, media coverage, and legislative receptivity to
change). We can compare the two cases along these dimensions and offer
some hypotheses for further analysis of the linkage between whistleblowing and policy change.
The cases illustrate how the status, credibility, and political skills of
whistleblowers can determine both the range of their options and the
extent of impact they can have. We hypothesize that the higher the status
and the greater the credibility and political skills of the whistleblower, the
greater is the probability of policy impact. Kaufman was an experienced
and politically astute mid-level official at the EPA who had extensive knowledge of the hazardous waste control program, a wide network of contacts
in the press and on Capitol Hill, a record of successful whistleblowing,
and a newly protected status in the agency. These characteristics enabled
him to influence the environmental policy agenda at a critical time in the
early 1980s, contribute significantly to important shifts in EPA personnel
and procedures in 1983 and later years, and shape revisions in federal
hazardous waste policy adopted by Congress in 1984 and 1986.
Similarly, Freeman was the OCR regional manager of a four-state
area who had abundant political and media contacts, credibility stemming from his expertise and experience, and who was willing to resign in
protest to further his goals of policy change. These attributes contributed
greatly to his ability to expand the civil rights agenda to include protection in cases involving AIDS, to affect personnel and procedures within
OCR, and to shape the development of new public policy in this area.
These cases also demonstrate how issue characteristics can affect a
whistleblower's chances of success. We hypothesize that the more salient,
specific, and administratively feasible the change demanded by the
whistleblower, the more likely he or she is to succeed. Freeman's issue was
quite specific: to apply anti-discrimination laws to people with AIDS and
those thought to have AIDS, and his activities occurred at a time when
concern over AIDS was growing appreciably both in the medical commu-

868

The WesternPolitical Quarterly

nity and among the general public. As the saliency of such issues increases,
there is more incentive for journalists and politicians to become involved,
and whistleblowing becomes similar to what Gormley (1989) describes as
catalytic controls on bureaucracy.
Kaufman's issue was broader, but still relatively specific: he wanted
better public protection from hazardous wastes and thus stronger enforcement of RCRA and the Superfund law. Moreover, like Freeman's campaign for extending civil rights protection, Kaufman's actions occurred at
a time of rising issue saliency; the public was increasingly worried about
toxic chemicals and hazardous wastes, and the Reagan administration's
environmental policies, including program cutbacks and reduced enforcement, were widely publicized. Both Freeman and Kaufman championed
issues of concern to constituents served by their agencies, which also made
their success more likely. Finally, they called for manageable changes that
affected one agency or that required revisions in the law, a change in its
interpretation, or increased funds, none of which was unfeasible at the
time. Their goals were also consistent with the missions of their agencies.
Perhaps the most essential factor for successful policy impact is a
favorable political environment. By definition, whistleblowers do not bring
about change from within the agency, but go outside the organization to
have impact. Their success depends as much on the interest, commitment, and actions of others as it does on their own skills or the merits of
their arguments. We hypothesize that the more supportive the political
environment is during whistleblowing, the greater the probability of policy impact.
As Kaufman himself hinted (1989), whistleblowers may act like policy entrepreneurs whose ability to stimulate others to take an interest in
the issues and become involved, particularly journalists, interest group
activists, and influential legislators, is important to the effects they have
(Kingdon 1984). The nature and extent of the impact will depend on the
incentives these external parties have to pay attention to the issues and act
on them, which is what we mean by a supportive political environment.
For these two cases, a Republican administration was confronted by a
Democratic House of Representatives eager to challenge its conservative
policy agenda. In addition, either public opinion clearly favored the policy change being advocated (especially notable in the environmental policy case) or effective advocacy coalitions were mobilized to further the
changes (especially evident in the civil right case). These conditions provide strong incentives for the conduct of legislative oversight hearings
(Aberbach 1979), which occurred in both cases. Congressional actions
eventually led to important changes in the two agencies.

BureaucraticWhistleblowingand Policy Change

869

CONCLUSION

Conventional analyses of whistleblowing focus on individuals' acts of

conscience, but ignore the possible policy impact of their actions. Our
purpose in this paper was to highlight this omission in the literature and
to provide a framework for analyzing such policy impact. We have used
two detailed case studies to demonstrate the utility of the framework and
to test several hypotheses that are derived from it.
We chose our two cases because we believed these whistleblowers helped
to bring about significant changes in public policy. Data from the cases
suggest strongly that whistleblowers can indeed have an impact on public
policy under certain conditions. These conditions include characteristics
of the whistleblowers themselves and of the issues they champion. Especially important is a supportive political environment: extensive and sympathetic media coverage, general public support and active support by
politically influential groups, and strong interest on the part of legislators
in a position to conduct oversight investigations and promote policy change.
Thus we hypothesize that the more these conditions are met, the greater
the likelihood that policy impact will occur. We also offered several related
hypotheses on the relationship between issue characteristics and policy
impact and between attributes of whistleblowers themselves and policy
impact. By focusing on the consequences of whistleblowing, these hypotheses help fill a gap in the existing literature (Elliston et al. 1985: 164-67;
Bowman et al. 1984) and tie whistleblowing to other mechanisms of bureaucratic accountability (Gormley 1989; Gruber 1987).
All of these hypotheses merit further examination because two case
studies are clearly insufficient to document these relationships. In particular, the use of additional cases involving different kinds of agencies,
issues, and political environments would contribute to refinement of the
framework and illumination of the complex relationships among the variables we have emphasized. Such studies would be especially interesting if
bureaucratic whistleblowing continues to be as prominent in the future as
it has been in the past two decades. The stories of individuals fighting
against large and seemingly irresponsible bureaucracies is dramatic and
often poignant. But the more important story may be the long-term policy
changes effected by their personal crusades.
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